Minsk city executive committee: Injured at work – pay a fine

There is a proposal to amend the Administrative Offences Code of Belarus, and to introduce sanctions against employees who violate requirements of occupational health and safety.

Dzyanis Kapitan, first deputy chairman of the Committee on Labour, Employment and Social Defense, has informed at a press-conference in Minsk, that Minsk city executive committee had proposed such an initiative to the Council of Ministers, “Interfax” reports.

The reason for coming forward with such an initiative named by him was the following: “about one thirds of the incidents of occupational injuries happen due to a fault of the injured themselves.”

According to him, the prospect to be fined for failure to use individual protection means or improper arranging of the working place could spur a worker to follow the requirements of labor safety.

“When fines were imposed for not attaching seat belts, people started to obey these requirements. We think that the situation could be the same with those who ignore requirements of labour safety,” Kapitan said.

He reminded that “at present an employee who had violated norms of labour safety subject to disciplinary action on the decision of an employer only.”

As said by Kapitan, reports on administrative offences could be drawn up by officers of the Department of the State Labour inspection by the Ministry of Labour and Social Defense of Belarus.

“The administrative function to draw up reports on administrative offence could be commissioned to state inspectors of the Department of the State Labour Inspection. They are professionally trained experts who know the legal base and are impartial. Enterprises also have services for labour protection, labour protection engineers, but their status often leaves much to be desired,” the representative of Minsk city executive committee said.

According to the operative information of Minsk city directorate of the Department of the State Labour inspection, over the 7 months of 2014, 13 employees had lethal injuries at work (14 injuries over the same period of the last year), 80 employees were seriously injured (86 workers over the 7 months of 2013). The highest accident rate is noted in the organisations of industry and construction.

“The main reasons for injuries with grave outcome are violations of labour and production discipline by the injured, failure to fulfill requirements of labour protection by management and specialists, and negligence of the injured,” Kapitan said.